Why I quit using plastic glitter

This image is a few years old but is still one of my favorite images I've ever taken. I love glitter. I really do. Some people hate it, but I feel like those people are also people I don't need to have in my life. Sparkle is amazing. Now, that said, glitter is BAD. It's plastic.. which means it never goes away. It never breaks down, it never melts, it's always there.. waiting. It washes down drains and into the ocean. It's eaten by birds and fish alike. Even people manage to get it into our eyes and mouths, and it's dangerous!

I'm actually known here for my use of glitter in photo sessions. My clients actually ask for them. These are all client images, and it didn't take me long to find these examples. For years, I was just blowing on the ground and leaving it there. I'd come back and see it still left on the ground and feel a little bad, but it's not like it was big pieces of trash I was just leaving laying around, right?

But then I did this session. I made the wand, covered in glitter. I made the skirt and that was covered in blue glitter also. I saw blue glitter everywhere for months. It was on my floor at my house no matter how much I swept or ran the vacuum. I was constantly picking it off of my husband, or myself.. I even picked a few bits off of my cat. It fell off of the dress while we were shooting, and coated these girls in blue glitter, it was a mess!

So then I started realizing what a huge problem it was. Girls would rub their eyes with glitter covered fingers and then start crying. Let me tell you, picking glitter out of tiny eyes is no fun for anyone. I noticed how glitter dresses would 'shed' and it'd be all over the kids and my car and my floors. Where was it all going? The trash, or the ground outside.

I still wanted to use it because my clients ask for it and I love the look, so I began having the kids blow the glitter over a blanket so that I could wrap it up and reuse it.. cutting down on the glitter litter a lot. It still fell off the dresses and got all over skin though, so it was still bad. What to do? So I have now switched to using BIODEGRADABLE GLITTER! It's expensive, so I'll still collect and reuse it when I can, but because it's made from plants and not plastic, it won't be an environmental hazard! Shine responsibly, my fairies!